Fantasy

Belated Birthdays and Blue Flames tried to stop us.

Hi Readers,

Thank you for joining us for our continuing Nor’easter Adventure. Who will prevail–a bunch of lovable fictional characters or the storm? Read on to find out but before you do, the cast (and by the cast I mean me, Ran, your lovable host,) would like to wish our hardworking scribe a belated happy birthday.

We forgot to announce that during last week’s excitement, but on the actual day, March 10, we turned out in force to demand she write our books instead of creating a culinary disaster.

Well, we tried. Said disaster is sitting in the trash and we’re still beating the powdered sugar out of our clothes and hair.

(We might have tried to help and it might have gotten messy. Very messy. The hazelnuts flew and quite a few got mysteriously singed. I swear it wasn’t me. My hand was nowhere near the gas stove top or the on switch. I have no idea why blue flames shot out of it, but they were pretty. Very pretty. I prefer red lumir though as my cooking source of choice. It’s less temperamental. 😉 )

So we’d like to also take this moment to wish everyone whose birthdays we missed a very happy birthday. And our scribe too. We’re sorry we redecorated your apartment in cocoa powder. But if it’s any consolation, cocoa pairs well with its teal walls.

Okay, and now back to our nor’easter adventure because I play a starring role and if Papa laughs any harder, he might fall out of his chair. 🙂

 

Last week, our scribe was trapped in a tower in New Rochelle, and we tried to get her out. (Aren’t we nice?)

Through skulking and skulduggery, Papa and I convinced her company to close early and let its employees, namely our beloved scribe, go home before the wind tore down the building. But when we piled into her compact blue car our adventure had only just begun.

(Are you noticing a pattern here? Someone’s obsessed with the color blue. 😉 )

“What does that angry yellow light mean?” I, Ran, leaned between the two bucket seats and pointed.

“Something’s wrong with one of the tires. It must need air,” Melinda, our scribe and official driver, said.

“How do we get air into it?”

“I have a compressor.” Our mild-mannered thirtyish scribe-in-a-snowsuit said as she lifted a canvas bag. (She hates the cold weather.)

Of course, the zipper tab had broken off. It wasn’t Melinda-proof. Few items are these days. She just gave me a ‘what can you do’ shrug. So I handed the bundle to Papa. His magic was already poking at its seams, so it might as well help with the fiddly bits of our escape plan.

Before Papa even touched it, the zipper sprang open releasing a cool black boxy gadget with a gauge, wires and a tube capped by a metal nozzle. Since it landed in my arms, I hugged it.

Melinda’s little blue car has two normal person-sized doors and a half door on the passenger side, which I opened. I landed on the blacktop in a crouch doing my best cat impersonation because they tend to survive everything thrown at them.

Magic rushed about like a pack of nervous green glowing dogs. I held my free hand up in a stop but they kept sniffing around.

Papa exited the car, ignoring my upraised hand. His magic was just trying to protect me but it kept poking at the mechanical parts. If it reached the electrical bits, something else would break. I patted the magic swirling around me to calm it.

Outside the wind howled and banged things around as it tried to tear apart the city. I shuddered until Papa squeezed my shoulder. His magic rushed toward the exit and the loud rattling sounds outside but it stopped well short of it and paced, refusing to get too far away from us.

“I can do this.”

“I know you can.”

Papa let go and leaned against the guardrail separating this ramp from the ascending one. He pulled his aura in as tightly as he could, but its edge still brushed against the back of my cloak. Not good, since magic and mechanics didn’t mix well, but I’m still a kid who requires supervision. And I was about to operate a mysterious device. 🙂

Since I didn’t have any magic yet, it was up to me inflate the tire. Melinda joined me but I shook my head. She didn’t have a visible aura, but her special powers allowed her to chronicle our lives and deliver them to you.

“I can do this. Just tell me how.”

Melinda twisted off the tire cap and connected the nozzle. I shooed her away before her magic could break something else. A moment later, she fired up the car and I squatted by the juddering device, watching the needle on the air gauge hover around the zero mark.

“I think it’s broken. It’s not moving much.”

I poked the gauge. Sometimes that helps.

“Maybe it just needs time.”

Papa’s magic engulfed me, warming my hands and face until I shooed him back to his post by the guardrail.

“Maybe.”

I glared at the compressor, pouring all my willpower into it. I imagined the air rushing into the tire. When I checked the gauge again, the needle was still floundering like a wounded bird. It struggled on for forty minutes.

When the needle hit thirty-two, I switched it off and threw the compressor into the footwell.

“It’s good. We can go now.”

“Great,” Melinda said as she backed the car out. Her knuckles were white from gripping the wheel.

Papa and I buckled up in the backseat. We were finally on the road, but it was clogged honking cars buffeted by the heavy winds.

“We have to get out of here. Is there another way?” I asked staring at the river of stalled red taillights. “I don’t like how the tower next to us is swaying.”

 

Our harrowing escape must continue next week because our scribe has a hard word limit and I exceeded it. You forgive me, right?

 

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Until next time, dear reader

This is Ran, son of Sarn, “Saver of Scribes” wishing you a great week!

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